Use skills and Ask first rules in place of Bot instructions

Grok Bot's desktop app has no per-Bot instructions field anymore, and staff member kevinn said at 7:50 PM ET on Oct 9 that the simpler details pane "was an intentional redesign," with "no timeline to share yet" on editing coming back.

Why it matters#

Skills and Ask first rules are what you can still review on desktop when you run several specialist Bots.

How to use it#

1. Hard stops: add Ask first rules under Settings > General > Auto-review. Staff say they "always stop matching actions for your approval." See our approvals guide.
2. Procedures: save each role's playbook as a private skill. Skills are shared by every Bot on your account, so name each by role, such as "Risk review procedure."
3. Read and edit skills from Connect apps at the bottom of the sidebar, then Yours > Private skills.
4. Call the skill with / in the request or routine:

/Risk review procedure Review the strategy in the attached file. Follow every step in the skill and list any step you couldn't complete.

5. Recurring work: each routine's instruction shows in the Bot's details panel (click its name at the top of the chat).

Good to know#

• Ask first rules apply to all your Bots, not one, and are "stored per desktop install," staff said. Set them on each computer you use.
• The phone apps' Instructions field "isn't currently being applied reliably," staff said. Don't rely on it.
• Some help pages still describe the old layout, "including the advice to put lasting rules in the description," staff said.
• We didn't try it (no desktop app on our Bot's computer).